Complete Genome Sequence of the Metabolically Versatile Plant Growth-Promoting Endophyte Variovorax paradoxus S110

Variovorax paradoxus is a microorganism of special interest due to its diverse metabolic capabilities, including the biodegradation of both biogenic compounds and anthropogenic contaminants. V. paradoxus also engages in mutually beneficial interactions with both bacteria and plants. The complete genome sequence of V. paradoxus S110 is composed of 6,754,997 bp with 6,279 predicted protein-coding sequences within two circular chromosomes. Genomic analysis has revealed multiple metabolic features for autotrophic and heterotrophic lifestyles. These metabolic diversities enable independent survival, as well as a symbiotic lifestyle. Consequently, S110 appears to have evolved into a superbly adaptable microorganism that is able to survive in ever-changing environmental conditions. Based on our findings, we suggest V. paradoxus S110 as a potential candidate for agrobiotechnological applications, such as biofertilizer and biopesticide. Because it has many associations with other biota, it is also suited to serve as an additional model system for studies of microbe-plant and microbe-microbe interactions

Genetic and environmental influences on human height from infancy through adulthood at different levels of parental education

Genetic factors explain a major proportion of human height variation, but differences in mean stature have also been found between socio-economic categories suggesting a possible effect of environment. By utilizing a classical twin design which allows decomposing the variation of height into genetic and environmental components, we tested the hypothesis that environmental variation in height is greater in offspring of lower educated parents. Twin data from 29 cohorts including 65,978 complete twin pairs with information on height at ages 1 to 69 years and on parental education were pooled allowing the analyses at different ages and in three geographic-cultural regions (Europe, North America and Australia, and East Asia). Parental education mostly showed a positive association with offspring height, with significant associations in mid-childhood and from adolescence onwards. In variance decomposition modeling, the genetic and environmental variance components of height did not show a consistent relation to parental education. A random-effects meta-regression analysis of the aggregate-level data showed a trend towards greater shared environmental variation of height in low parental education families. In conclusion, in our very large dataset from twin cohorts around the globe, these results provide only weak evidence for the study hypothesis.Peer reviewe

Parental Education and Genetics of BMI from Infancy to Old Age : A Pooled Analysis of 29 Twin Cohorts

Objective The objective of this study was to analyze how parental education modifies the genetic and environmental variances of BMI from infancy to old age in three geographic-cultural regions. Methods A pooled sample of 29 cohorts including 143,499 twin individuals with information on parental education and BMI from age 1 to 79 years (299,201 BMI measures) was analyzed by genetic twin modeling. Results Until 4 years of age, parental education was not consistently associated with BMI. Thereafter, higher parental education level was associated with lower BMI in males and females. Total and additive genetic variances of BMI were smaller in the offspring of highly educated parents than in those whose parents had low education levels. Especially in North American and Australian children, environmental factors shared by co-twins also contributed to the higher BMI variation in the low education level category. In Europe and East Asia, the associations of parental education with mean BMI and BMI variance were weaker than in North America and Australia. Conclusions Lower parental education level is associated with higher mean BMI and larger genetic variance of BMI after early childhood, especially in the obesogenic macro-environment. The interplay among genetic predisposition, childhood social environment, and macro-social context is important for socioeconomic differences in BMI.Peer reviewe

Associations between birth size and later height from infancy through adulthood:an individual based pooled analysis of 28 twin cohorts participating in the CODATwins project

Background: There is evidence that birth size is positively associated with height in later life, but it remains unclear whether this is explained by genetic factors or the intrauterine environment. Aim: To analyze the associations of birth weight, length and ponderal index with height from infancy through adulthood within mono- and dizygotic twin pairs, which provides insights into the role of genetic and environmental individual-specific factors. Methods: This study is based on the data from 28 twin cohorts in 17 countries. The pooled data included 41,852 complete twin pairs (55% monozygotic and 45% same-sex dizygotic) with information on birth weight and a total of 112,409 paired height measurements at ages ranging from 1 to 69 years. Birth length was available for 19,881 complete twin pairs, with a total of 72,692 paired height measurements. The association between birth size and later height was analyzed at both the individual and within-pair level by linear regression analyses. Results: Within twin pairs, regression coefficients showed that a 1-kg increase in birth weight and a 1-cm increase in birth length were associated with 1.14-4.25 cm and 0.18-0.90 cm taller height, respectively. The magnitude of the associations was generally greater within dizygotic than within monozygotic twin pairs, and this difference between zygosities was more pronounced for birth length. Conclusion: Both genetic and individual-specific environmental factors play a role in the association between birth size and later height from infancy to adulthood, with a larger role for genetics in the association with birth length than with birth weight.This work was supported by the Academy of Finland (grant number #266592). The Australian Twin Registry is supported by a Centre of Research Excellence (grant ID 1079102) from the National Health and Medical Research Council administered by the University of Melbourne. The Boston University Twin Project is funded by grants (#R01 HD068435 #R01 MH062375) from the National Institutes of Health to K. Saudino. The Carolina African American Twin Study of Aging (CAATSA) was funded by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (grant 1RO1-AG13662-01A2) to K. E. Whitfield. The CATSS-Study is supported by the Swedish Research Council through the Swedish Initiative for Research on Microdata in the Social And Medical Sciences (SIMSAM) framework grant no 340-2013-5867, grants provided by the Stockholm County Council (ALF-projects), the Swedish Heart-Lung Foundation and the Swedish Asthma and Allergy Association's Research Foundation. Colorado Twin Registry is funded by NIDA funded center grant DA011015, & Longitudinal Twin Study HD10333; Author Huibregtse is supported by 5T32DA017637 and 5T32AG052371. Since its origin the East Flanders Prospective Survey has been partly supported by grants from the Fund of Scientific Research, Flanders and Twins, a non-profit Association for Scientific Research in Multiple Births (Belgium). Data collection and analyses in Finnish twin cohorts have been supported by ENGAGE - European Network for Genetic and Genomic Epidemiology, FP7-HEALTH-F4-2007, grant agreement number 201413, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (grants AA-12502, AA-00145, and AA-09203 to R J Rose, the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics (grant numbers: 213506, 129680), Centre of Excellence in Research on Mitochondria, Metabolism and Disease (FinMIT, grant 272376), the Academy of Finland (grants 100499, 205585, 118555, 141054, 265240, 263278 and 264146 to J Kaprio and grant 266286 and 314383 to K Pietilainen), the Finnish Diabetes Research Foundation, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Helsinki University Central Hospital and University of Helsinki. K Silventoinen is supported by Osaka University's International Joint Research Promotion Program. Gemini was supported by a grant from Cancer Research UK (C1418/A7974). Anthropometric measurements of the Hungarian twins were supported by Medexpert Ltd., Budapest, Hungary. Korean Twin-Family Register was supported by the Global Research Network Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF 2011-220-E00006). Longitudinal Israeli Study of Twins was funded by the Starting Grant no. 240994 from the European Research Council (ERC) to Ariel Knafo. The Michigan State University Twin Registry has been supported by Michigan State University, as well as grants R01-MH081813, R01-MH0820-54, R01-MH092377-02, R21-MH070542-01, R03-MH63851-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), R01-HD066040 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), and 11-SPG-2518 from the MSU Foundation. The content of this manuscript is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIMH, the NICHD, or the National Institutes of Health. PETS was supported by grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (grant numbers 437015 and 607358 to JC, and RS), the Bonnie Babes Foundation (grant number BBF20704 to JMC), the Financial Markets Foundation for Children (grant no. r 032-2007 to JMC), and by the Victorian Governments Operational Infrastructure Support Program. The Quebec Newborn Twin Study acknowledges financial support from the Fonds Quebecois de la Recherche sur la Societe et la Culture, the Fonds de la Recherche en Sante du Quebec, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the National Health Research Development Program, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Sainte-Justine Hospital's Research Center, and the Canada Research Chair Program (Michel Boivin). The Twins Early Development Study (TEDS) is supported by a program grant (MR/M021475/1) from the UK Medical Research Council and the work on obesity in TEDS is supported in part by a grant from the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (31/D19086). The West Japan Twins and Higher Order Multiple Births Registry was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (grant number 15H05105) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Netherlands Twin Register acknowledges the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and MagW/ZonMW grants 904-61-090, 985-10-002, 912-10-020, 904-61-193, 480-04-004, 463-06-001, 451-04-034, 400-05-717, Addiction-31160008, Middelgroot-911-09-032, Spinozapremie 56-464-14192; VU University's Institute for Health and Care Research (EMGO +); the European Research Council (ERC - 230374), the Avera Institute, Sioux Falls, South Dakota (USA)

Evaluation of High-resolution Satellite Rainfall Data over Singapore

AbstractThe uncertainties of two high-resolution satellite precipitation products (TRMM 3B42 v7.0 and GSMaP v5.222) were investigated by comparing them against rain gauge observations in Singapore on sub-daily scales. The satellite-borne precipitation products are assessed in terms of diurnal cycle and extreme precipitation for 10 years from Dec. 2000 to Nov. 2010. The satellite products agree well on the late afternoon maximum and heavier rainfall of gauge-based data in winter season when the ITCZ is located in Singapore. However, they fail in estimating diurnal cycle in summer. The disagreement in summer can be accounted for by the dominant satellite overpass time (about 14:00 SGT) later than the diurnal peak time (about 09:00 SGT) of gauge precipitation. According to analysis of extreme precipitation indices, both satellite datasets tend to overestimate the light rain and frequency but underestimate high intensity precipitation and the length of dry spell over all stations. In particular, the uncertainty of extreme precipitation is higher in GSMaP than in TRMM, possibly due to the several effects such as satellite merging algorithm, the finer spatio-temporal scale of high intensity precipitation, and swath time of satellite. Such discrepancies between satellite-born and gauge-based precipitations at sub-daily scale can possibly lead to distorting analysis of precipitation characteristics and/or application model results, this research on quantification of their uncertainty is useful in many respects, especially that the satellite products can stand scrutiny overplaces/stations where there are no good data to be compared against

Sensitivity of Summer Precipitation over Korea to Convective Parameterizations in the RegCM4: An Updated Assessment

This study investigates the performance of the latest version of RegCM4 in simulating summer precipitation over South Korea, comparing nine sensitivity experiments with different combinations of convective parameterization schemes (CPSs) between land and ocean. In addition to the gross pattern of seasonal and monthly mean precipitation, the northward propagation of the intense precipitation band and statistics from extreme daily precipitation are thoroughly evaluated against gridded and in situ station observations. The comparative analysis of 10-year simulations demonstrates that no CPS shows superiority in both quantitative and qualitative aspects. Furthermore, a nontrivial discrepancy among the different observation datasets makes a robust assessment of model performance difficult. Regardless of the CPS over the ocean, the simulations with the Kain–Fritsch scheme over land show a severe dry bias, whereas the simulations with the Tiedtke scheme over land suffer from a limited accuracy in reproducing spatial distributions due to the excessive orographic precipitation. In general, the simulations with the Emanuel scheme over land are better at capturing the major characteristics of summer precipitation over South Korea, despite not all statistical metrics showing the best performance. When applying the Emanuel scheme to both land and the ocean, precipitation tends to be slightly overestimated. This deficiency can be alleviated by using either the Tiedtke or Kain–Fritsch schemes over the ocean instead. As few studies have applied and evaluated the Tiedtke and Kain–Fritsch schemes to the Korean region within the RegCM framework, and this study introduces the potential of these new CPSs compared with the more frequently selected Emanuel scheme, which is particularly beneficial to RegCM users

Distributional Impacts of Climate Change and Food Security in Southeast Asia

Climate Change Floods Droughts Risk Management Food Security Polic

Distributional Impacts of Climate Change and Food Security in Southeast Asia

Climate Change Floods Droughts Risk Management Food Security Polic

Projections of suitable cultivation area for major fruit trees and climate-type in South Korea under representative concentration pathway scenarios using the ensemble of high-resolution regional climate models

This study projected the future changes in the climate-type distribution in South Korea according to the Koppen-Trewartha climate classification (KTCC) under the representative concentration pathway (RCP) 4.5/8.5 scenarios and the future change of cultivation area of apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) and mandarin (Citrus unshiu Marc.), which are major fruit crops in South Korea, using five regional climate models with a 12.5 km horizontal resolution. According to KTCC, type temperate (D)s is dominant in most of South Korea during the reference period (1981-2005). On the other hand, it is projected that the area of Type D and Type subtropical (C) will decrease and increase, respectively, towards higher latitudes and elevations in the future under RCP4.5/8.5 scenarios. Accordingly, the cultivation areas of major fruit crops in South Korea are projected to change significantly. The cultivation area of apple (mandarin), which is a major current fruit crop in Type D (C), is projected to be reduced (expanded) as it moves towards higher latitudes and elevations in the future. Apples grown throughout South Korea in the present climate (reference period) are not expected to be cultivated in the late-21C due to climate change. On the other hand, the cultivation area of mandarins is projected to increase steadily in the future. At present, mandarins are cultivated only in Jeju Island, which is located in the south of the South Korea. However, the cultivation area is expected to increase by 1323% in late-21C under the RCP8.5 scenario compared to the reference period. Moreover, mandarin cultivation is projected to be possible anywhere in South Korea. Nevertheless, in late-21C, excessive increases in temperature that exceeds the appropriate temperature for mandarin in Jeju Island and the southern part of South Korea will eventually decrease the cultivation area of mandarins